“From the polyglot border region of Ticino in Switzerland - well-known for its beautiful Lake Maggiore and the International Film Festival in Locarno - comes Final Step, the seven-member band of guitarist Matteo Finali. Live @ Il Magazzino is the band's third album since its formation in 2003. The diverse musical backgrounds of all the band members shine through on the album: a fusion of jazz, rock, funk, blues and ethnic music. The album was recorded in the studio of Mauro Fiero, who also produced the...

"In Ogni Luogo was released in early 1999 on the IrIdea label, and is notable for the pristine production work by former PFM collaborator Roberto Colombo. Back to a four piece, the album is mostly instrumental, although vocalist Francesca Laho guests on In Ogni Luogo and i>ContinuitadiLaraneltempo while Sergio Caputo adds lilting violin to Snaporaz and Le Citta Indicibili and takes a more aggressive lead role in Coro Elettrico. The compositions are mostly quite laid back, refined numbers which are...

"Finisterre, one of Fabio Zuffanti's many projects, were founded in the now distant 1994, debuting the following year with a self-titled album that immediately pushed the band at the peak of the reborn Italian prog scene of the '90s. It was the beginning of a beautiful story that lasted about ten years, marked by four wonderful releases that still don't suffer today from the inevitable passing of time. And from that beginning, 25 long years have already passed: reformed for Zuffanti's Z-Fest event in...

Jonathan Finlayson - trumpet
Miles Okazaki - guitar
Matt Mitchell - piano
John Hébert bass
Craig Weinrib - drums

"Moving Still is the eagerly-awaited follow-up to trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson's Moment and the Message, which was voted the Number One album by a debut artist in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll and called 'a great modern jazz record that also sounds like joy and feels like a dance' by PopMatters. One of the most highly regarded young musicians on the scene, Finlayson was..

“Led by future Strawbs guitarist Dave Lambert, Hounslow-based trio Fire failed to break through in their lifetime, but have posthumously been championed by two slightly different elements of the collector network: mod/psychedelic pop admirers love their much-covered 1968 single ‘Father’s Name Is Dad’ and their collection of similarly-styled demos from the same period; while progressive rock fans have made the 1970 Pye album ‘The Magic Shoemaker’ a hugely valuable artefact.
Finally, all of their work...

Mats Gustafsson - flute, baritone sax, live electronics
Johan Berthling - electric bass
Andreas Werliin – drums
Goran Kajfes - quartertone trumpet
Mats Aleklint - trombone, sousaphone, horn arrangements

“Fire! tracking new paths and reaching new levels of excellence, still honoring their 12-year-old vow of presenting a fresh approach to improvised music. Their debut album, You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago, was released in 2009 to wide international acclaim. "The basic strategy of..

"Rune Grammofon presents (without noticing), the fifth album from Swedish trio Fire!, comprised of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing), Johan Berthling (Tape) and drummer Andreas Werliin (Wildbirds & Peacedrums). This album follows collaborations with Jim O'...

"Fire! Orchestra follow their acclaimed 2014 album Enter with Ritual, slimming the ensemble down from 28 of northern Europe's finest jazz and improvisational musicians to a mere 21. Since the release of Enter, this energetic and dynamic mass ensemble has gone from intimate jazz settings to the main hall at the Molde International Jazz Festival and a major stage at the prestigious Roskilde Festival. As brilliant as Enter is, with Ritual they have outdone themselves and produced a beast of beauty and power...

The troupe's third release and their first to be based around a single, unifying theme. Very funny, smart and even a bit touching.

"By fusing the high-concept comic vision of Stan Freberg with the expansive studio experimentation of the...

Firesign's fourth album and a classic of comedy/not comedy. And at a fantastic price. Learn all the lines like I did in High School and dazzle/bore your friends! This picks up exactly where "Don't Crush" left off, with the familiar sound of...

Featuring Chris McIntyre and Peter Zummo, trombones; "Blue" Gene Tyranny, keyboards; and The Black Jackets Ensemble.

"This was something unexpected and truly different: pulsing electronic textures that derived their rhythm from the beating...

“Michael Fischer is an Austrian musician, composer and instant composition conductor. He works on the immanence of language within sounds, their sculptural and dramatic evidence, on the tenor saxophone, the violin, on cd-player setting and conducted instant compositions, in improvised and experimental music. Since 1999 he connects the electro-acoustic phenomenon feedback with acoustic instrumentation by creating and playing the feedback saxophone. He also collaborations with literary writers, dance...

“This is the band’s sixth album and much anticipated follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘Black Rain’, features a line-up of Nick Beggs (bass and vocals), Frank van Bogaert (keyboards & vocals), Marty Townsend (guitars) and Marcus Weymaere (drums) and is the culmination of three years work.
The sessions saw Nick Beggs assume the role of co-producer with Frank Van Bogaert. ‘8mm’ is a fascinating collaboration between friends and kindred musical spirits and is their finest work to date.”

“Two brilliant improvisers, two distinct generations, one close-listening encounter. Swedish guitarist (and, elsewhere, banjo player) Niklas Fite brings a flinty intimacy to his playing, a dry punch that reminds us that the guitar is a percussion instrument. One of the great figures in European improvised music, based in Hannover, Germany, Günter Christmann gained notoriety as a trombonist starting in the very early 1970s, but he was equally engaged in playing double bass and cello and has in recent...

Last time ever on this wonderful release from the wonderful, now gone, Reel Recordings label.

"Gerry F. Fitz-Gerald is a Scottish born guitarist, possessed with kaleidoscopic imagination and commanding ability for improvisational music...

"David Fiuczynski is without a doubt one of the greatest guitarists in the world of jazz and rock today, both from a technical and from a creative/compositional stanpoint.

Originally known as the funanbolic guitarist and founder of funk-jam band Screaming Headless Torsos, David has since evolved his craft immeasurably via a string of remarkable releases which investigate and develop the integration of microtonal canons and techniques with western grooves.

The seven movements that...

Vitaly Appow — bassoon, soprano sax, bass guitar
Olga Podgaiskaya — piano
Olga Polakova — flute
Anastasiya Mosse — violin
Ilona Ies’ — cello
Vyacheslav Plesko — doublebass
Nikolay Siamitka — percussion (track 4)
Aliona Sukliyan — oboe (track 5)
Vladimir Pashkevich — clarinet (track 7)
Andrey Verishka — marimba, vibraphone (tracks 1,2,6,7)
Ekaterina Maretskaya — piano (track 3)

This is the 2nd release by Five-Storey ensemble, who came out of the grou

“So...Who is this guy?" These words are a touchstone in the liner notes for Mr. Flaherty's first solo release, 2003's Voices. The notes are an insightful reckoning on what it means to be a free improvising artist (he was 54 at that time, and had already been at it for most of his life). He speaks of "the artist in residence", that part of him that just wants to blow, to shed the tired conventions and self-conscious-over-thinking and just play. Play and see where it takes him. Play and chase the coattails...

"Paul Flaherty has been a direct lifeline to the radical free-reed lineage of Albert Ayler, John Gilmore, Peter Brotzmann and Arthur Doyle since first coming into our vision sometime in the '80s. In the '90s he began woodshedding hard with Northampton...

This 1989 release was Flairck's 9th album. They remain a great progressive/classical/folk/world/ethnic fusion outfit, using instrumentation like acoustic guitar, violin, viola, flutes, recorders, panpipes, acoustic bass, & much much more. All instrumen...

First self released album by a duo who play instrumental progressive rock. Spacious keyboards and soaring guitars are strongly featured.

"In late 2022, Roland Hegi and Felix Waldispuehl, both multi-instrumentalists who had previously played together in an instrumental prog rock band called Fors, decided to pool their skills and talents in a new project centered around Roland’s recording studio in Zurich.
Flow is the duo’s debut album, an all-instrumental (save a very few spoken English...

Yes, just like the Moody Blues!

“If you loved "The Soft Bulletin" way back when it debuted in 1999, you'll enjoy this lush, gorgeous performance. Unlike so many "live with symphony" albums out there, the orchestration and choral backing for the band seems like a logical treatment, and delivers a completely new interpretation of the album. Songs like "The Gash", "Race for the Prize" and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" gain an expansiveness and power that is a nice complement to the original. The...

Second album by this very fondly remembered offshoot of early Yes, featuring guitarist Peter Banks, along with Ray Bennett (bass, guitar), Colin Carter (vocals) and Mike Hough (drums). A very good Yes-related album that has a lot of stylistic...

"In 2005 Chris Funk (the guitarist of The Decemberists) and his family moved into their new home in the historic Mississippi neighborhood in Portland, OR. He would play various instruments on his porch during hot summer night which caught the attention...